Our native eorrespondout at Peking, writing under date of the Goh instant, reports the death in the prison of the Board of Punishments on the 4th idem of the ex-General Yeh Chih-chao, of Yashan fame," during the late war. Ie will probably'be recalled that Yeh wes sent by Viceroy of Chili ant Comm: chief ut the land and naval forces of the Peiyang admin tration, in June, 1894 to Corea with about '1,300 men, just prior to the war with Japan, in order to assist the Goi to crush the Tongkah rebels near Yashan, and on the breaking out of war in July was attacked there by the Japanese who had in the meanwhile occupied Seoul, General Yeh, however, the night before the attack departed, having no ammunition for his men, leaving the brunt of the fighting to his lieutenant General Nieh, now his successor as Provincia! Com: mander-in-Chief of Chihli. Nieh extricated himself from his perilous position ut shan and retreated after his Chief whose str wie movement to the rear" was id that the lieutenant with him at Ping. afterwards, Instead of up to his defeat, which he might easily hive done owing to the known great ctl superiority of the Japanese at an, Yel proclaimed himself, instead, th her of igumerable viewories over the nese, whom he reported to the Throne eched fight at Yashan and during in by tens of thousands in the his retreat to Pingyang. But confronted with facts by the was ordered decapit the autumn assizes of impri to await
1805, By the use, of immense amounts of steve Yeh got his execution postponed from time to time, until the tions of his prison and the disappoint.
from the failure of frequent apts to bay pardon from the Throne were too much for him and he bre ast in the prison from which he Leen led out for execution four Te will also be remembered that there were with Yeh three other Generals and Kung Taotai, the ex-Civil Commandant of Port Arthur, under_similar sentences of death at the time; Kung Taotai and two Generals having' been condemned for cowardies and abandoning Port Arthur to the Japanese, and General Chiang of Newchwang who ran away from that place assuan as the Japanese scouts appeared, Of these the last-named and another General died natu or two after their ang now Yeh having also ung Taotai named Huang occupy their Boatd of Punishments coming of another Autumn another postponement of thei As soon as Yeh's death was reported to the President of the Board of Punishments by the head gaoler, the matter was ro-ported to the Throne and the Court of Censors was ordered to hold an inquest. A bridge of od and bamban was made over the walls of the prison and the dead body wrapped in a red shroud passed over it, and handed to a party of runners of the Court of Censors waiting for it on the other side, in the street. The then carried to ° temple near here sat she ten Censors of the five "cities" of Peking, who had been appointed to hold the inquest. The body havin been examined and identified it was then turned to the deceased ex-General's family to be placed in a coffin for burial.
ed that the head sador of the Punishments "charged Yeh's fa 500 foe the construction of this bridge alone; otherwise the corpse would have been shoved through a small aper-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.